A ten year old little girl who lives in Ardmore, said to her mother recently “Mom, why are there so many car stores in Ardmore?”

Out of the mouths of babes, comes the truth.

Why are there so many car dealerships in Ardmore?

(Hint: “Just Because” doesn’t suffice)

Historically speaking, one could say since 1899, because that is the date the Ardmore Autocar Company moved to Ardmore.

The Autocar company was where Ardmore West is today - as per www.LowerMerionHistory.org,

Autocar in Lower Merion
by David Schmidt
Special to Main Line Life
It may be a shopping center now, but when the factory was here, Autocar was Lower Merion's major employer. More than that, it made some of the best and most progressive trucks in its time. When it started in 1898 in Pittsburgh as the Pittsburgh Motor Vehicle Company, it was a manufacturer of horseless carriages - a term that reflected the era. The means of propulsion, not its purpose, was the major concern. Later these horseless carriages would evolve into cars, trucks and tractors.

...Ed Minshall has been a part of Autocar since his birth. He grew up in Lower Merion and, after graduating from Lower Merion High School, worked at the Yellow Cab Company. He was replaced in that job by returning veterans, but that experience taught him that he wanted to do something mechanical. So he followed his father, also an Ed, into the company. His dad was the service manager for the manufacturing division - a senior position - and Ed's arrival continued what had become a family tradition. Ed's father worked there from 1918 until his retirement in 1953. More importantly, he met his wife there. She was Elsie Trunk and had been a secretary in the front offices since 1922, after graduating as valedictorian from Haverford High School in 1921. After courting for a year, Ed and Elsie married in 1925, at which time she became a homemaker. It was customary then for a working woman to give up her employment upon marriage. Elsie's brother Fred worked there from 1917 until retiring in 1962. His son, Fred Jr. also worked there from 1947 until 1953, and Ed's brother was an employee from 1949 until 1951.

Minshall tells of the fire which damaged much of the factory in 1954. "I was at my grandmother's house and saw a big pillar of black smoke. I worked my way towards the fire," he says. Already there were Merion Fire Company fire fighters - ironically, in their Autocar fire trucks, fighting the blaze. reenwood and Philadelphia firefighters assisted in bringing the blaze under control. According to Minshall the deluge gun of the Philadelphia fire department - mounted on an Autocar truck - was critical in putting out the blaze. "Ardmore was very lucky that day not to have been destroyed by the fire," says Minshall. "There was no wind at all or Ardmore might have burned down," he says.

Ok, so that was a factory. As far as the modern car dealership goes, we’ve been looking at them for as long as most of us can remember. And as time has progressed, the dealerships seemed to have grown...spread...and they all seem to just want to get BIGGER.

Now the last time we tackled car dealerships in Ardmore, one of the scions of a family owned dealership registered up here and gave us a good old chide. The title of the post was “Welcome To....Little Detroit?”.

We said in our post in part:

Folks, it is more than a little disheartening some days to imagine Ardmore as a bright light in this township when you consider the density overload threatening to overtake this small main street oriented town. And yes, all you fans of over urbanization, Ardmore is a main street oriented small town. But by the time development lessens it’s icy grip, will it still be?
....So, in addition to MUST, we now have to ask should Ardmore change it’s name to Little Detroit?.... You can’t throw a stick in Ardmore and NOT hit a car dealership.

Our fellow poster said in part in the comments on the post:

My family has always given back to the community that surrounds our businesses. For example, We built a library and stocked it with books in an elementry school in West Philadelphia. We donate Vans to the Ronald McDonald house so the less priveleged sick children can be shuttled to and from hospitals in the area. The reason I tell you this, is to settle some of the anger in your voice. There are many dealerships, that you have such negative emotional energy towards, especially in Ardmore, who are as philanthropic as we are, and are willing to give to the community. I appreciate the hulking and ugly remarks, fortunately the township and all of our customers who live locally are thrilled with what we have done. Putting a $21 million investment into the gateway into 'Our' neighborhood, is only helping us. I reccomend you change your approach if you want to be successful in your endeavor...We have already beautified our properties with a lot of greenery, and cleanliness. Realize that we are here to stay for a long time.

We will state again for the record we are not here to discuss philanthropic efforts. We are here to discuss how many car dealerships we have and how they seem to grow and grow. We are also entitled to discuss how large and hulking and out of character the buildings are.

These car dealerships have to realize that entering Ardmore from the east is not attractive to anyone other than those who own or work for car dealerships. It’s a harsh landscape of metal, chrome, concrete and glass. And at night, the literal glow of these car dealerships infiltrates the serenity of many Ardmore neighborhoods with light pollution. Yes, light pollution.

Let us take a minute to discuss light pollution:

We all know why we have light outside. Outdoor lighting is used to illuminate roadways, parking lots, yards, sidewalks, public meeting areas, signs, work sites, and buildings. It provides us with better visibility and a sense of security.

People sleep better when their property is properly lighted, when their car outside is clearly visible through the window. However, light alone does not provide security, but a sense of security. Unless your up all night, nothing guards you better than a dog, a fence/door/window security system or police patrols in your neighborhood.

When well designed and properly installed, outdoor lighting can be and is very useful in improving visibility and safety and a sense of security, while at the same time minimizing energy use and operating costs.

BUT, because nobody thought at this, most street lights shine light not only on the nearby ground, where IS NEEDED, but also miles away and skywards. Thus a large fraction of the light is lost, at consumer expense and without his/her consent.

Most of the wasted light comes from the POORLY DESIGNED...LIGHTS...GOOD LIGHTING is a properly shielded light, that illuminates the sidewalk, your yard or your property. In case of lights you control, like security lights, you're showing RESPECT for you neighbors privacy by keeping the light in your yard.

BAD LIGHTING is a light that leaks light sideways or upward, as most of the commonly used street lights are. Also, most of the security lighting, people put in their yards shines brightly on neighboring properties. Letting you yard light shine on your neighbor window or yard is rightly qualified as LIGHT TRESPASS in some states or states counties and one could get a fine for an offending light.

....Light Polluition is excess or obtrusive light created by humans. Among other effects, it can cause adverse health effects, obscures stars to city dwellers, interferes with astronomical observatories, wastes energy and disrupts ecosystems. Light pollution can be construed to have two main branches: (a) annoying light that intrudes on an otherwise natural or low light setting and (b) excessive light, generally indoors, that leads to worker discomfort and adverse health effects. Since the early 1980s, a global dark-sky movement has emerged, with concerned people campaigning to reduce the amount of light pollution.

Light pollution is a side effect of industrial civilization. It comes from sources such as building exterior and interior lighting, advertising, commercial properties, offices, factories, streetlights, and lit sporting venues. It is most severe in the highly industrialized, densely populated areas of the United States, Europe, and Japan, but even relatively small amounts of light can be noticed and create problems.

....Light pollution" (also known as photopollution, luminous pollution) refers to light that people find annoying, wasteful or harmful. It also does a lot of damage to the environment and health, as do other forms of pollution such as air pollution, noise pollution, water pollution and soil contamination.

In addition to light pollution, these car dealerships are victims of some of the harshest architecture, and we use the term architecture loosely.

Car dealerships seem to today to have a formula. Every car manufacturer has a design ideal, so no matter where you are you know that all dealerships for one manufacturer will look the same. Yes the same. It creates a very generic, industrial landscape. And when you add these samey –same designs to a suburban landscape like ours in Ardmore, it is so extraordinarily unattractive. You can tart up a corpse, it’s still a corpse. You can lanscape, but parsley aoround the pig is just that. (o.k. we’re sure that every car dealership in Ardmore is annoyed about now, but dudes we’re not saying anything different from what everyone else says on this topic.

So the border between Ardmore and Wynnewood is one big car dealership landscape. With the inevitable expansion of the Infiniti Dealership to the western edge of Ardmore, just before the Haverford Border, it now means that entering and exiting form either end of a small, main street oriented town is ringed with car dealerships.

As Cheryl Allison of Main Line Life wrote in this article on 01/11/2007:

Ardmore's Lancaster Avenue car dealerships could grow, but the town would lose a piece of its history, under plans before Lower Merion Township this week. Planners had concerns about traffic and pedestrian safety with projects at both Infiniti of Ardmore and Ardmore Nissan, located at opposite ends of Ardmore's business district. While conditions of approval would deal with some of those issues, they saw no solution to the Infiniti dealership's plans to demolish a group of buildings associated with one of Ardmore's oldest businesses, A. Talone Cleaners.

Infiniti of Ardmore's owner, Joseph Bush, acquired the Talone properties, in early 2006, with plans to take them down and expand parking for display of vehicles. The buildings include the 1904 building at 318 Lancaster Ave. where tailor Alphonse Talone started his cleaning business, and a 1930s twin building next door.

Together, they are some of the oldest buildings in that section of Lancaster Avenue, preserving a part of the early 20th century streetscape. But they have never been listed on the township's inventory of protected historic resources.

Bush was granted zoning relief last year to combine and redevelop those properties. However, he was denied a change of use variance for a twin house he had also planned to acquire. The twin homes remain standing under the current plans, surrounded by parking associated with the dealership.

In recent months, Bush had met with township planners and the Historical Commission to discuss the possibility of saving some elements of the façade of the Lancaster Avenue Talone buildings, said Assistant Planning Director Chris Leswing. However, Bush's attorney told planners it would add as much as $1 million to the project costs, and did not mesh with plans for the site.

Plans do include some streetscape improvements, but the township engineer and planning staff want more information about traffic impacts on Holland Avenue and at the Lancaster/Woodside Avenue intersection. Additional traffic studies will be completed before the project comes back for preliminary plan approval.

However, staff said the dealership has indicated it will not pursue an option to open Holland Avenue, currently one-way in from Lancaster Avenue, to two-way traffic up to its property line. Holland Avenue residents had suggested that would be a way to reduce traffic into their neighborhood.

...Commenting on the Infiniti/Talone plans, member Robert Gray said it was "a further example of the destruction of the fabric of Ardmore which we've been trying to save."

Expansion may be "a misfit of the [car dealer] use in a small town," he suggested. But as a by-right development, "We're saddled with it."

Cheryl Allison wrote in a follow-up article:

Commissioners saw no easy answer, but that did not make them more comfortable with the loss.
"Instead of a nice streetscape [leading into] historic Ardmore, we're moving ... toward a more bleak landscape," said Commissioner Brian Gordon. "We're moving in the wrong direction," agreed Commissioner Lance Rogers, who joined him in voting to oppose the plan...Last year, the township's zoning hearing board granted Bush relief to permit the plan, a decision Commissioner Scott Zelov said was baffling. While he called it a "particularly disappointing application," it is apparently a by-right plan.

At last week's meeting, in addition to the traffic impact, Holland Avenue resident Marie Kramer raised a new concern. She asked commissioners what had been done to determine whether there are environmental hazards because of the Talone properties' long use as a dry-cleaning plant, and whether precautions would be taken during demolition.

Bush's attorney, Daniel Coval, said he had not represented the dealer when the sale was handled, so he did not know what environmental issues or remediation might have been addressed then. However, he said, at the commissioners' request, he would provide any environmental studies before the project comes back for preliminary plan review.

So now we wait and wonder. Not only about what will the soil yield at the Infiniti site as far as contaminations in the soil and what the fate of the A.Talone Buildings will be. We have to throw it out there: wasn’t there an article in the news a long time ago about contaminants around there????

The thing that continues to drive everyone wild is when as citizens we are told “there’s nothing we can do”. It’s crap. Change the laws and codes that create “by right” building. On a state level; on a local level.

As citizens we deserve better, and it would be nice if the township broke with historic precedent and don’t let Holland Avenue get screwed again. Ardmore deserves better.

That’s our opinion. It not blasphemy, it’s an opinion.